Dark Halls - A Horror Novel Page 6

  “Ryan.”

  “Ryan, there are only four people left from Highland that are still working here: me, Carol Lawrence, Barbara Forsythe, and Stew Taylor.

  “Now, me and Barbara, we been here the longest. Barbara’s the head secretary. I’m sure they’ll bring another in to assist, but Barbara will be the one to tell you what time it is in Russia. There’s nuthin’ that woman don’t know about nuthin’, and I can guarantee she knows more about Highland than I ever will. You might find her a bit standoffish—hell, some might even call her a proper bitch—but that’s only cuz she’s an old fart like me and been doing the job too damn long. Tough old bird, though. Could easily retire at her age, and with all the crazy shit that’s happened around here the past twenty-some years, you’d think she would. But she stays on. My guess is that the job has become all she knows; wouldn’t have the first clue on how to pass the time if she did hang ’em up for good.

  “Carol Lawrence, now, she’s been here a spell herself. Been through all the craziness over the years just like Barbara and me. Lovely woman, Carol. Has a classroom floor you could eat off of. Never had to break even the tiniest sweat when I got to cleaning her room at the end of the day. She’s another one that didn’t have to come back. Veteran like her could probably get a job anywhere. Came back though, bless her.”

  “She’s the mother of the pretty blonde at the other end of the building,” Ryan said.

  Karl’s face lit up. Not that it changed much; it still looked like one of those wrinkly dogs Ryan still couldn’t name,

  (Sharpie? No, that’s a magic marker, stupid)

  but for the first time, Ryan got a look at the old man’s eyes. Like little slivers of green almonds under those canopies of flesh.

  “Is that right?” Karl said. “Well, how ’bout that? I imagine we got us another fine teacher on our hands.”

  “What about the last one?” Ryan asked. “What did you say his name was? Stew?” Eternally bad with names, something he would have to remedy when the school year started, Ryan had only remembered the name because of Stewie from Family Guy.

  “Stew Taylor. He’s the health and phys-ed teacher. Big son-of-a-gun. Handsome fella too. Looks like Denzel Washington, some of the ladies at Highland used to say. He was good friends with John Gray. John was the other gym teacher at Highland who…” Karl paused a moment, searching for the right words, “…took his own life.”

  Ryan replayed the interview with Hansen. He remembered his mentioning of the gym teacher’s suicide. “Was he the one who hanged himself from a basketball hoop?”

  Karl looked at the floor and traced a cross on his chest. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “So, why did this guy Stew stay on, you think?”

  Karl looked up. “Don’t know. My guess is that he’s like the other two: tough as nails and willing to stay for the sake of the kids. I think there’s a part of him that stays for John, too.”

  Ryan nodded and dropped his own head out of respect.

  “Now, I just painted a pretty good picture of those three, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, here’s the thing: They been here long, and I been here long. We’ve all been through some serious shit. Seen stuff most people wouldn’t see in a million lifetimes. And I’m here to tell you that I don’t trust a single one of ’em.”

  Ryan’s chin retracted. “Why?”

  “I’m not pointin’ any fingers, son, but there’s somethin’ wrong with this school, and somebody brought it here.”

  Ryan snorted. “Wait a minute. Are you implying that one of the veterans you just mentioned is bad luck? Come on, man.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. But I am saying that whatever it is that lives in this place didn’t get here by itself. The folks I just mentioned been here the longest, since the very first tragedy. No record of any such stuff happening before they came on board. Take from that what you want, but I do know that I haven’t survived as long as I have in this place without looking out for number one and trustin’ nobody.”

  “So, if you don’t trust anyone, then why are you telling me all this?”

  Karl smiled. “Cuz you’re new, son. And I seen the look on your face when you ran out of that lounge.”

  “What did I see, Karl? I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  Karl shrugged. “Neither do I. But that don’t mean they don’t believe in us.”

  Ryan fought the urge to roll his eyes. If Karl had turned out to be Hansen’s father, he wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. “So, did ghosts kill all those kids? Did ghosts make all those teachers commit suicide?”

  “You’re puttin’ words in my mouth, son. I never said such a thing. But there’s something here that can make folks do things they wouldn’t normally do, make folks see things they wouldn’t normally see. If you want to call that ghosts, then go ahead, but I think that’s making it too simple. I think whatever’s here is just too damn mean to be labeled anything in particular.”

  “So, by your logic, you could have brought the ‘mean’ thing here,” Ryan said.

  Karly smiled again. “Now you’re gettin’ it, son. Trust no one.”

  “So, are you like the other three then?” Ryan asked. “Are you still here because you’re tough as nails and care about the children’s future?”

  “Nah,” Karl said. “I’m still around cuz I wanna see whatever the hell it is that lives here die before I do.”

  14

  Rebecca left the school at half past two. She was happy with the progress she’d made in her classroom, but was still preoccupied with thoughts of Ryan and his strange behavior earlier.

  She had known him for all of five minutes, but her curse of overanalyzing everything, coupled with her frequent waves of self-doubt, had her digging around in her head for something she might have done to deter him from spending more time with her this afternoon like he’d suggested. Her regrettable play at indifference when they first met? No. She wasn’t that bad. Even her self-doubt could see that. Some might have even called it playing hard to get. And even if it was that, wouldn’t the guy have simply refused to stop by at all? One might assume that his very brief visit might have been his own turn at a play of indifference, only it seemed anything but. It was weird. Very weird. But the guy was cute, and cute superseded weird in Rebecca’s school of philosophy.

  She was on the road for no more than thirty seconds before justifying lighting up that cigarette. It took little convincing to come to the conclusion that she needed it. She needed it because she had worked hard in the classroom, and she needed it because she was stressed by the thought of a cute guy she had just met being turned off by her. She nodded her head once emphatically, opened her glove compartment, and grabbed the old pack of Marlboro Lights.

  Her earlier prediction that one of the stale cigarettes might taste like crap was pleasantly untrue. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. She cracked her window, took a deep drag, and exhaled into the wind.

  Dammit, why was he being so weird? What did I do?

  15

  Ryan was playing basketball in an empty gymnasium by himself. The lights in the gym were off, but he could see.

  On the sidelines was Karl. He was wearing a referee’s uniform and had a whistle around his neck. The basketball hoop before him appeared larger than a standard hoop. The backboard was not glass, but a black chalkboard. On that blackboard the crude white lines of the classic Hangman game were there, larger than life. So far only a base and a pole had been drawn onto the board.

  The net to the hoop was absent. In its place was a man hanging from a noose. He was dressed in a track suit—a gym teacher.

  Despite the hanging gym teacher’s presence, Ryan inexplicably continued to shoot at the basket. Each time he did, the man hanging from the noose—who was still alive—would wince as the ball flew towards him. Each shot Ryan made would cause another Hangman line to appear. Karl blew his whistle every time Ryan scored.

  Soon, t
he Hangman drawing was one shot away from completion. The remaining piece—the head—was all that was needed. Without delay—again, inexplicably, the irrational but rational order of the mind in his dream state once again in full effect—Ryan shot the ball and scored.

  Karl’s whistle blew.

  Ryan turned his back to the hoop and began bouncing the ball with powerful, triumphant thuds. Each time the ball hit the floor, it did not produce the sound of rubber on hardwood, but instead produced something dull and heavy and wet. The sound of someone slapping a roast onto a cutting board.

  Ryan looked down at the ball in his hands. He saw the tongue first, hanging from the side of the gym teacher’s open mouth, purple and swollen. The eyes on the severed head were rolled back white, the neck hitting Ryan’s chest with powerful jets of red.

  Ryan dropped the severed head and spun back towards the hoop. The gym teacher’s body was gone. The black backboard was now glass, as it should have been. Karl was gone too. The lighting in the gym grew darker. Ryan tried to leave but could not; fear leadened his feet. He felt a tap on his shoulder.

  Ryan turned and found himself facing the headless gym teacher. In the gym teacher’s right hand was his own head, held by a clump of his own hair. The head still pulsed blood from the neck, the purple tongue still dangled. The eyes were no longer white but blue and wide, straining as they looked up at Ryan, accusatory.

  Ryan opened his mouth to apologize but could produce nothing. The gym teacher turned his back on Ryan and whipped his own severed head against the concrete wall behind him where it exploded into a mass of a red and blue and black.

  Ryan found his voice and cried out, sitting bolt upright in bed. He was soaked again.

  16

  Rebecca and her mother sat in their usual spots at the kitchen table with their coffee.

  “That is weird,” Carol Lawrence said to her daughter. “You haven’t spoken to him since?”

  “Nope. He was really sweet when I saw him in the morning, but then when he showed up in my room later, he looked totally freaked out.”

  Carol sipped from her coffee. “Well, maybe you’ll see him today and get an explanation.”

  Rebecca grunted and sipped her own coffee. “We’ll see.”

  “So he was cute, huh?” Carol asked with a little grin.

  Rebecca found her mother’s grin contagious. She grinned back. “Yeah, he was.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him.” Her grin was now devilish.

  “Mom, if you even think of trying to embarrass me…”

  Carol laughed.

  “Oh, Becks, I wouldn’t do that. Or would I?”

  “You’re evil. Anyway, he’s probably married or has a girlfriend or something.”

  “Married?”

  “He’s thirty.”

  “Did you see a ring?”

  “I didn’t think to look.”

  “Well, get a good look today.”

  “I’ll try. I promised him some juicy gossip. We’ll see if he ever takes me up on the offer.”

  Carol frowned, confused. She set her coffee cup down. “Gossip?”

  “The stuff that happened at Highland. When I told him who you were and that you were my mother, he seemed keen on hearing a story or two.”

  Carol raised her cup and drank slowly. Then: “You know I don’t like to discuss what happened there, Rebecca.”

  Uh oh. It was Rebecca now; no Becks. Mom was serious.

  Rebecca reached across the table and took her mother’s hand. “I know that, Mom. I told him you didn’t talk about it. I guess I was just trying to be friendly. I mean, I did just spit gum on the guy’s shoe. I didn’t mean to—”

  Carol placed her hand on top of her daughter’s. “I understand, sweetheart. I’m not angry. It’s just a very difficult subject for me to talk about. Watching children murder children is something that will never leave me.”

  Her mother’s frank choice of words punched a hole in Rebecca’s gut. “I’m sorry, Mom. I won’t bring it up again.”

  Carol patted her daughter’s hand and smiled. “It’s fine, Becks. I completely understand why you did what you did.”

  Back to Becks. Good.

  Carol stood. “Okay, I’m off. I’ve got some errands to run. What time will you be heading in today?”

  “Pretty soon. What about you? When do you plan on getting your classroom ready?”

  Carol brought her cup to the sink, then flashed her devilish smile again. “When you’re stuck in orientation next week.”

  Rebecca gave a playful frown. “No fair.”

  17

  Cynthia Herb looked at her son with concern. He was pale. His eyes were dark from lack of sleep. She’d heard him hit his snooze button at least half a dozen times this morning.

  “Ryan, are you all right? You look like hell.”

  Ryan poured himself a cup of coffee at the kitchen counter. “Thanks, Ma.”

  “I’m serious, honey; you don’t look so hot.”

  “I don’t feel so hot.”

  “So then what are you doing up?”

  “Work.”

  Cynthia plucked a stray cat hair from her nurse’s uniform, then stood next to her son at the counter. “I thought you didn’t have to be there officially until the 28th.”

  Ryan brought his coffee into the den and slumped onto the sofa with an old man’s groan. “My room, Ma. I have to get my room ready.”

  Cynthia followed him. “You told me practically nobody showed up yesterday. Can’t you take a day off?”

  “Maybe some teachers can, but I need every single day in that room to make it look like I know what the hell I’m doing.”

  “Can’t you get some ideas from other teachers?”

  “Not if I don’t show up for work I can’t.”

  “Fair enough. Still, you don’t look well. Let me take your temp.” Cynthia started for the junk drawer in the kitchen. Ryan promptly stopped her.

  “I’m fine, Ma. I just didn’t sleep well. I keep having these weird dreams.”

  Cynthia stopped and faced her son again. “Another dream about the school?”

  Ryan nodded and sipped his coffee. “I don’t get it. None of the stuff that happened there bothers me in the slightest. But ever since I got this job, I’ve had two nightmares that would make Stephen King hard.”

  Cynthia frowned at her son’s crassness. Then: “Well, maybe it does bother you and you’re not allowing yourself to admit it.”

  Ryan made a face.

  “It’s possible, Ryan. Some horrible things happened at that school. Maybe it bothers you on a subconscious level.”

  “But that school doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “But it’s still the same building, so to speak. Still the same land.”

  “Jesus, Ma, you sound as bad as Karl and Hansen.”

  “Karl and Hansen?”

  “Never mind. I’ll be fine.”

  Cynthia kissed her son on the top of his head. “Don’t stay there too late today. Get a little bit done, then come home and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Ryan grunted.

  Cynthia Herb left, only to poke her head back in a moment later. “There’s something on your car,” she called to Ryan.

  “Huh?” Ryan called back, but his mother was gone again. He stood and walked towards the front door. He peered through one of the adjacent windows, fixing on his car in the driveway. There was indeed something on his car. An envelope tucked underneath one of his windshield wipers.

  “Fucking solicitors,” he grumbled. He went outside, caring little that he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a faded Philadelphia 76ers tee. The Herb House, his mother used to tease him, where pants are optional.

  A beige 8x10 envelope was under the wiper. He lifted the wiper and took the envelope. There was nothing on the front or the back. No address; no writing of any kind. Ryan held it up to the sky and tried to use the sun to see its contents. He got nothing.

  Ryan opened the envelope and pulle
d out its contents. It contained a large photograph of several people standing in rows, smiling cheerfully. At the bottom of the photo were the words Highland Elementary Staff 2002.

  Ryan’s first thought was: Who left this for me? His next thought was: Why was this left for me? And his final thought—realization—chilled him to his core. Those three teachers in the front row are the same three I saw in the teachers’ lounge yesterday.

  18

  Rebecca’s justification for smoking this time was that she’d felt bad making her mother upset during breakfast. And no stale ones this time. A fresh pack needed buying if she was going to justify her stupid habit. It was just common sense, if you asked her.

  Fresh cigarette lit, car window cracked, Rebecca began her second trip to Pinewood. She had two goals today: one necessary, the other self-indulgent.

  First she would make order of the bedlam that was her classroom. All materials would find an orderly home and become labeled accordingly. Books would be shelved and within reach of little hands. And finally, what amounted to her own little custodial station would stand in the corner behind her desk—a helpful tip passed on to her from her mother. She was teaching first grade, after all. Kids that age were content to let runny noses drip to the floor. Feared asking to go to the nurse, preferring instead to barf smack in the middle of class. Or, God forbid, feared asking to use the bathroom, and, well…

  The second, self-indulgent goal was to find Ryan the cute weirdo and give her mind the valium it craved by getting to the root of his odd behavior the other day. That and to do as her mother suggested and check for a wedding ring. Fish for anything that might suggest a girlfriend. Her ongoing battle with self-doubt notwithstanding, Rebecca felt certain there had been the tiniest of sparks between them yesterday. She was going to make every effort to see whether those sparks were mutual.

  She was about to get her chance sooner than later.

  Pulling into the school’s lot, Rebecca spotted Ryan exiting a black Toyota Corolla. Her belly swirled.